


Our Broken Hearts (Welcome To New York)

by Houseofmalfoy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Muggle, F/M, Gen, Minor Character Death, Original Character Death(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25839829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Houseofmalfoy/pseuds/Houseofmalfoy
Summary: Their futures would be bright, Narcissa knew it for certain, but she hoped that she’d have more chances to visit New York City; whatever else the future would bring.
Relationships: Rabastan Lestrange & Rodolphus Lestrange & Narcissa Black Malfoy, Rabastan Lestrange/Narcissa Black Malfoy
Comments: 5
Kudos: 6
Collections: Somewhere in the World Fest





	Our Broken Hearts (Welcome To New York)

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [pandora_rose_xo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pandora_rose_xo/pseuds/pandora_rose_xo) in the [Somewhere_in_the_World](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Somewhere_in_the_World) collection. 



> **Prompt:**  
>  New York 
> 
> Beta'ed by Melodylepetit!

_ 2010 _

The first time Narcissa set foot in New York City, she was sixteen years old. 

She sat beside Rodolphus on the flight there, just across from Rabastan who was seated on his own behind the twins’ parents in their first-class seats. They spent the eight-hour flight discussing the upcoming trip, napping on each other’s shoulders, and trying to persuade Adrastia and Raoul to buy them alcoholic drinks, and Narcissa had the time of her life despite the boredom that settled in after a while.

New York was everything Narcissa had previously imagined it to be if she looked past the litter and the homeless people, but the pride and energy she felt walking down Broadway at Rodolphus’ and Rabastan’s side was incomparable to how she felt in London. 

London was home, familiar and safe and strangely cosy despite its size; New York was her wildest dreams, for better and worse, and the city set something alight in her that Narcissa didn’t expect but welcomed gladly. 

Raoul and Rodolphus went to see the horse races just outside the main part of the city, and Adrastia Lestrange took her and Rabastan to the opening of the New York Fashion Week, the real reason the trip had been planned. Narcissa, who’d always had an interest in fashion and had always looked up to Adrastia, was enamoured with what she saw. 

Adrastia had always been like a mother to Narcissa, who wore a necklace with the woman’s family emblem engraved in its pendant around her neck that she’d been given a mere week after she’d begun her transition. The matriarch of the Lestrange family was everything Druella Black had always failed to be to Narcissa; she loved and accepted her, was a role-model and a mother, and Narcissa wouldn’t change it for the world. 

That first trip to New York set a few things in stone for Narcissa: she wanted to be just as successful in the fashion industry as Adrastia; she wanted to visit New York far more often, and Rabastan Lestrange was an excellent kisser when he took you to see the Statue of Liberty and snogged you on the boat there. 

oOo

_ 2014 _

When Narcissa and the twins were twenty and twenty-one respectively, they visited New York with just the three of them for the very first time. She felt impossibly mature, stepping onto the plane with her best friend and boyfriend to spend a week in the city that never sleeps; no adults, no responsibilities, just Narcissa and two boys she’d known her whole life, living to the fullest. 

They flew first-class, and Narcissa shared the wine the twins could order and she was denied until the three of them were blissfully tipsy. The flight was spent planning the upcoming week, taking pictures to post online as soon as they had the chance, and mercilessly teasing Rodolphus when he blushed a deep scarlet at a rather promiscuous text from his then-boyfriend. 

Room arrangement was a problem. They ended up settling for two rooms and decided they could alternate who stayed where per night. Narcissa would’ve loved to have Rabastan to herself all week, but where, when they’d been younger, it’d been Bastan who’d felt left out of the close friendship she and Dolphus shared, these days it was Rodolphus who wasn’t always as confident if he fitted in with his brother and best friend still. 

They got wasted at a bar where the bartender didn’t check Narcissa’s ID and spent the entire first night refusing to admit that drinking it away wasn’t going to be the cure for their jetlag. When Bastan got sick on the pavement outside the bar it was an easy decision that Narcissa and Rodolphus would share the two-person room that night. 

New York was still every bit as intimidating and exciting as it had been the first time she’d set foot in the city, and even but perhaps especially without Adrastia’s and Raoul’s presence, Narcissa felt powerful and alive amidst the lively crowds and ever-burning lights all around her. 

They went to see a drag show to which Bastan only begrudgingly accompanied them despite ending up having a great time inside the cosy bar in which it was held. They didn’t drink as much as the first night, as Narcissa decided soft drinks would do just fine for her and by extension Rabastan, who she didn’t allow more than two glasses of alcohol. All the same, the three of them felt mature and happy, just as they were meant to with the entire world at their fingertips. 

She and Bastan danced for the majority of the night after the show had ended, glitter in her hair and on her cheeks that rubbed off on him until he looked positively dazzling; Dolphus had the sense to look the other way when his brother got closer to ravaging than simply adoring Narcissa, and took the single room that night with a good-natured roll of his eyes. 

Narcissa felt at home in this city that felt so much bigger than where she’d grown up in London despite knowing full well that wasn’t the case; New York was far more crowded, but she found she didn’t mind at all.

Their futures were set in stone already: Rodolphus was meant to one day inherit the Lestrange business of training and breeding the finest Selle Francais and Dutch Warmblood horses, Bastan was determined to make a name for himself outside of the family businesses but with the help of the family’s wealth, and Narcissa had secured a position withinAdrastia’s own designer brand. 

Their futures would be bright, Narcissa knew it for certain, but she hoped that she’d have more chances to visit New York City; whatever else the future would bring. 

oOo

_ 2017 _

Rabastan had just turned twenty-four years old when he took Narcissa to New York for two and a half weeks.

Just the two of them, young and powerful and as in love as Narcissa supposed they’d always been meant to be. Rabastan and she enjoyed the luxury of first-class tickets as they always did, sharing glasses of wine while she listened to him talk about the upcoming days with such excitement in his voice that she wished he’d never stop. 

For Narcissa, the main event of their stay would be another Fashion Week that this time around she would be attending in Adrastia’s stead. There were a few designers working under Adrastia who would join her there, but Narcissa felt immensely proud of having been chosen to represent Mrs. Lestrange herself. 

She was beyond thrilled, but it seemed her excitement was nothing in comparison to the pride with which Bastan was glowing. He’d always been eager to make his money and build his reputation in business outside those established by his family; where Rodolphus and Narcissa were both more than happy to take on what Raoul and Adrastia had built before them. He’d bought his first hotel last year, in the heart of London, and this seemed the only logical next step. 

He’d confided in Narcissa that the hotel he’d recently bought in New York felt more significant than the first. A different sort of milestone, taking the business international, as well as a connection to many trips spent in the company of the two people he trusted most in the world. This was to be the first time he set foot in the hotel after it had been rebuilt to suit Rabastan’s style, and Narcissa was honoured she’d been taken to join him. 

They weren’t engaged because Narcissa didn’t think it classy to be married before 25, but Rabastan introduced her to the hotel staff as his wife all the same and she loved him for it. She’d been a part of his family for seventeen years now, it only felt justified that she be introduced as an official member of it too. 

She thought the hotel was gorgeous; homely to those used to such luxurious style but excessively impressive in a way that suited Rabastan perfectly to those who couldn’t afford it in their day to day lives. 

They shared a drink in the hotel bar, he admired her as she took a dive in the pool, and later that night they christened the new establishment when he joined her as she rinsed off the saltwater in their room’s beautiful bathroom. 

Narcissa considered it not the start, but the confirmation of something so strong and so perfect that it would last their entire lives; the two of them at the top of the world, wealthy and powerful and only getting better as they got older. She didn’t think it could end.

She wasn’t naive enough to think there wouldn’t be setbacks and hard times, but laying in bed beside Rabastan in a hotel that he owned, the prospect of a Fashion Week she’d attend for a successful designer brand that happened to belong to his mother; Narcissa didn’t think anything could put an end to the future she and Bastan were building together. 

oOo

_ 2020 _

Given how at home Narcissa had always felt in the bustling crowds of New York City, she thought it only made sense it was where she was headed now. 

With tears in her eyes she sat in the first-class seat she’d always taken, her complimentary drink untouched on the tray before her. No Adrastia and Raoul on the seats in front of her, for she and the twins had buried them eight months ago; no Rodolphus talking her head off about the horses he’d been working with, for he was in France trying to ignore any responsibility he had to his father’s business; no Rabastan trying to get her to join the Mile High club, for she hadn’t been able to look him in the eye for the past half-year.

Her neighbour looked at her oddly but for once Narcissa cared very little about what other people thought of her. One of the flight attendants asked if she needed a glass of water, which Narcissa quietly declined but was grateful for when she received it anyway, and she closed her eyes as she leaned back in her seat with a trembling sigh. 

She was alone. 

The necklace Adrastia Lestrange had given to her years ago, back when Rabastan and she were not yet engaged but destined to spend the rest of their lives together regardless, felt like it was choking the life out of her around Narcissa’s neck. She hadn’t taken it off in months, even though she’d never felt more distance between herself and the Lestrange family. 

It was Adrastia’s brand that took her to New York now. Narcissa was moving, having bought a penthouse near Times Square mere months ago after deciding once and for all that if she was going to run her would-have-been mother in law’s brand she would do it properly. 

Narcissa felt thrilled and proud and terrified still at the idea that she’d inherited the majority of the shares of the brand at what felt like a far too young age; she was touched and honoured and hurt beyond compare knowing that she’d been written into the Lestrange’s will as though she was part of their family, but more than anything else she felt dreadfully  _ alone _ .

She’d needed a change after everything that had happened; after the loss of people she considered her own parents and the loss of a man she’d have married if he hadn’t been so careless and unfaithful in his grief; she’d needed to feel reconnected to the joys she’d once shared with a family that had always been hers. 

There’d been an opportunity for the brand in New York City, and the decision had been painfully easy to make. 

Narcissa reached to clutch the dahlia necklace against her chest. She just hoped it’d been the  _ right  _ decision, too. 

  
  



End file.
